Like many, I grew up with a saying deeply rooted in my rural family: “If you don’t work, you don’t eat.” As a child, this wasn’t just a moral lesson—it was an everyday truth. Work wasn’t just a duty; it was a measure of worth: you were valuable as long as you contributed to the community. As long as you worked, produced, or completed tasks.
This mindset gave me strong moral foundations and a solid work ethic, no doubt. It taught me to take responsibility, to be reliable, and that work carries weight.
But today, I no longer believe that only those actively contributing to society deserve the basics of life. Just think of children, the elderly, or the sick, and this idea falls apart. They are not "useless," not less worthy, and absolutely deserving of care.
We become a society by caring for those who can’t care for themselves.
That compassion and security aren’t reserved only for performance.
For a Long Time, I Valued Myself Through My Work
Still, it took me a long time to apply this insight to myself. For years, I believed I could only value myself through my work. Every evening, I reviewed what I had accomplished that day. If the list wasn’t long enough, I felt guilty. But if I checked off every task, even getting ahead on tomorrow’s to-dos, I leaned back satisfied. As if my worth was directly tied to how many tasks I completed.
Eventually, a question started nagging me: Am I valuing myself, or just the work I did? If I do less one day, am I less? If I’m sick, tired, or simply drained, do I lose the right to treat myself kindly? To rest, to enjoy, to just be?
I realized I had unknowingly mixed up the idea of “usefulness” with self-worth. I didn’t just want to work well—I only allowed myself to exist under conditions. If I performed, satisfaction followed. If not, self-criticism took over. And in the long run, that doesn’t teach discipline, it teaches a lack of self-love.
The real turning point came when I consciously started learning what it means to love myself unconditionally. Of course, this didn’t happen overnight. First, I practiced not beating myself up after an “unproductive” day. Then, I learned I didn’t have to justify everything: why I rest, why I say no, why I’m not doing “anything useful.” Slowly, I understood that my worth isn’t made up of checkmarks on a to-do list.
This doesn’t mean I suddenly stopped valuing work or that reliability lost its importance. I love doing good work, being counted on, and I’m proud of what I create. But I no longer measure my worth by these alone. I don’t have to earn the right to treat myself well. I don’t have to perform to deserve rest, joy, or patience with myself.
Today, I believe being useful is a great thing. But being human is not a reward—it’s the baseline. And I deserve kindness even when I’m not doing anything “useful.”
